Disclaimer: Not mine, not at all.
Summary: Wesley's thoughts, and Illyria's actions and a lot of chaos in between.
This is the first time I've written from Wes's P.O.V.
New, improved and edited (teach me to write at two in the morning!). I must also add that I am British, and so any comments that Wes' language isn't 'British' enough are not going to be agreed with by me - I've tried to make Wes less stereotypical, and, of course..you ever heard of Americanisation? :) Feel free to disagree however!
Thank you!
She is destroying me.
I haven't really considered my mental state ever since she appeared. I haven't had the chance to really think about what's she done and what she's doing.
It's all gone so fast, one thing rolling into another – there was too much to do, too much at stake at first to give myself a moment of self-assessment, and see how bad it had all turned...
Now, however…
I am the reader, the learner, the man with the pen, and its been my job, mine, to discover all I can, to get the details and write them down and manipulate her to our advantage.
I'm such a failure.
I kept it under control, behind a barrier of lead and steel. I saw her, she saw me, but there was a world between us, and neither particularly wanted to get any closer than necessary. Her, because I'm more than inferior…and I because…
She was - is - a creature to me, an alien, unfathomable creature who simply inhabits the body of someone I used to know. I see and I accept that, and each day I still swear, once I have learned all there is, I will put her down and end this cruel brigade.
Yesterday, she commented to me, whilst she wandered round the laboratories as she…as Fred had done, that I often seemed to be fighting against something; something non-physical.
I explained to her that these were emotions, that it was a human thing, and gosh, hadn't I apologised enough yet?
She ignored my sarcasm, simply sneering, and replying in her long, monotonous way that she could smell the emotions, that they fell off me in waves like leaves to the ground. I was a small, inconsequential being, as were the rest of my kind. But she could not comprehend why these emotions would contradict each other. She said that they had changed, that it hadn't been this way before, and was intrigued as to the cause.
"You hate me, as you have always done. But now you also desire me"
I had no reply; indeed, I couldn't even speak.
"You spoke before of adaptation" She commented, her fingers tracing round the edge of a flowerpot she had brought in from outside. Her nails scratched the terracotta and made the tiniest of sounds.
I stared at her, open-mouthed, feeling my stomach turn in fear and…acknowledgement.
"Is this an example of what you spoke?"
Then she had walked towards me, abandoning the tub of damp earth after first pulling from it a just-sprouting bulb. The bulb was being held tightly in her palm, and I knew she was attempting to mimic the soil. It was all about power.
"I…I am not adapting to you, Illyria" I stated coldly, trying to ignore the pounding of my heart that suggested I was lying. The pounding was too loud for her not to notice.
"You lie" She hissed, and brought the bulb up in front of my face, letting it rest on her open palm.
"This seed…It has been pulled from what it knows, and now is confronted with something foreign and unnatural. The Light" She studied it with her ice-blue eyes, and I wondered how deep they could see. "Will it also adapt and survive? Or will it flounder and shrivel, helpless like a child?"
I stared back at her, willing myself to match her gaze.
"It was already welcoming the change, Illyria. Look at the shoots"
"Baby fragments, no match for the outside"
"It means your metaphor is flawed"
Her head tilted in question.
"Coping with change is different than searching for it…"
A flicker of something ran across her face; it could have been contempt, but I was afraid it was something else entirely.
"My kind do not have to adapt!"
"You're the only one of 'your kind' left. You might see benefit to change…to adapt to our ways, our mannerisms"
"I will not be like you!"
I thought of the gun, of the energy it had created to drain her power, of the edge she had reached, so near to destruction. So full of cracks, and winding cobwebs, and that searing blue-white light…
"I didn't say you have to be like me" I countered softly. "You simply have to redefine yourself"
She had given that the briefest thought, before dropping the bulb to the floor, and crushing it to nothing beneath her foot.